Thailand's former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is set to be indicted under the country's strict laws on insulting the royal family, which carry a maximum jail term of 15 years.
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00:00Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned from self-imposed exile last year and was
00:06immediately handed an eight-year sentence on charges of abuse of power and conflict
00:11of interest.
00:12But he only ended up serving about six months of those, entirely from hospital, before he
00:16was released on parole this February.
00:19Now, that led a lot of people to speculate that he and his political party, Perthai,
00:24which is the ruling party here in Thailand, had done a deal, had done this grand bargain
00:29with their sworn enemies, their bitter rivals, the conservative parties and the military
00:34that had ousted him in a coup in the first place.
00:37So these charges, this indictment, did come somewhat as a surprise, and I think it really
00:42shows that Thaksin Shinawatra still has some very powerful enemies within the royalist
00:47establishment.
00:48Now, his is the most high profile of these less majestic or royal defamation cases that
00:55Thailand's ever seen, but he's just one of hundreds of people who've been prosecuted
00:59under these laws, which are some of the strictest of their kind in the world.
01:05Just this week, a politician from the opposition Move Forward party was given a two-year sentence
01:11under the less majestic laws.
01:13And about a fortnight ago, a young activist who was being held in pretrial detention was
01:19hunger striking, and she died.
01:22And that really reignited this debate and this anger over these laws, and what many
01:28say is a need for justice reform.
01:30Now, all of this comes while the Prime Minister, Setar Tavison, faces his own legal dramas.
01:36Basically, there was a cabinet reshuffle here back in April.
01:40Setar Tavison appointed to the ministry a man called Pichit Chernban.
01:44The problem was that Pichit had served time in jail.
01:48He'd served about six months in jail back in 2008 for allegedly attempting to bribe
01:53a judge in yet another of Thaksin Shinawat's legal cases.
01:57Now, the Thai constitution says that anyone in the ministry has to be of evident integrity.
02:03So he immediately announced his resignation last week in an attempt to try to protect
02:08Setar Tavison from the legal fallout of this, but it's unclear if that will work.
02:13The Prime Minister, Setar Tavison, now has about two weeks to put forward his case of
02:19why he made that appointment in the first place, or he risks being ousted as Prime Minister.
02:24So this is by far the biggest threat that he and his government have faced since they
02:30came to power last August.
02:32So plenty more turbulent, tumultuous times ahead in Thai politics, but obviously this
02:38is a place that is no stranger to political turmoil.
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